I have a story to tell. One from my own life. It’s a story I cannot seem to understand the meaning of yet. I don’t know if this is the right place to post this (please let me know if this belongs somewhere else), but I would like the opinion of those who have esoteric knowledge.
After his wife passed away, my great-great-grandfather became a renunciate from his family life and built a Kali temple somewhere in modern-day Bihar. Heard this story from my grandfather, also a deeply spiritual man. A chemist by profession, who did his M.S. and PhD. from America and England, he had a fond interest in numerology and astrology. We are kshatriyas (ugra-kshatriyas), but he used to wear the ‘poite’ and do the puja at our house.
Our house is another story. It is a very, very old place in south Calcutta. Back then, many from bonedi baris in north Calcutta used to buy homes in south Calcutta. The house my great-grandfather (a businessman) bought here was a one-storyed building, known to have been a British administrative building. There are other stories from my grandparents I have heard, one of them being that Sri Sri Ramakrishna had also come into that building. My great-grandfather bought the building, and later constructed the first and second floors.
When my great-grandparents came into this house, a neighbor who had also just moved in said something strange to my great-grandmother, then a young woman. Back in the day, one could communicate from chhad-to-chhad. The lady called my great-grandmother, and said: "Ami ekta shopno dekhechi. Choto Gopal laphate laphate elo, diye eshe amake bolche: 'Oderke bol ami oder barite achi.' Prothome khali shopno bhebe ar kichu bolini, kintu teen raat por por amar ei shopno ta elo. Tai bhablam amar apnake bole dewa uchit." [Translation: “I had a dream. Little Gopal came skipping up to me and said, ‘Tell them I’m at their house.’ At first, I dismissed it as just a dream and didn’t say anything, but I had the same dream three nights in a row. So I felt I should tell you.”]
My great-grandmother told this to my great-grandfather, who didn't take the idea seriously. He maintained that we are Kali worshippers, and that it didn't make sense to suddenly worship Krishna. However, that night, my great-grandmother had a dream—two big, beautiful eyes. She immediately recognised them to be the eyes of Krishna. She decided she could not ignore it.
The next day, she and my great-grandfather went to north Calcutta to buy a Krishna idol. They searched all day, but my great-grandmother was not satisfied. None of the eyes looked like the eyes she saw in the dream. After a long day of searching, they were heading back home. At that very moment, she felt like someone was calling her from the back (one gets that feeling, you know? It's an unmistakable feeling!). When she turned around, she saw an eye (just one eye) peeking through a paper-wrapped idol in one of the shops she had just visited. She recognised it immediately. She asked the shopkeeper to show them this idol as they had not shown that one to them yet, and when she saw it, it was those eyes. The same eyes of Krishna from her dream. And so, my great-grandparents brought home our Bonkubihari. And we have been praying to him since. It is the idol of Banke Behari, a specific form of Krishna in the tribhanga posture, believed to be the combined form of Radha and Krishna. To this day, I dress up our Bonkubihari in a ghaghra, not a dhuti/dhoti. There is a saying: “Jini’i Krishno tini’i Kali.” [Translation: “He who is Krishna is also Kali]. And this story I have carried from my childhood.
In my childhood, I treated Krishna as my brother. I deeply wanted a sibling when I was a child. My Jetha (father’s elder brother) is divorced and had a son who was about 8 years older than me, and the last time I saw him I was only two years old, so I have no memory of him. Growing up, therefore, and hearing stories of my Dada, I always wanted one. My grandmother gave me the idea that Bonkubihari was my Dada. And so He became. I loved him. Spoke to him like a friend, scolded him, asked for things from him. Interestingly, I found that many of the things I asked, I got! I did not ask for too many things or ‘bad’ things, but I found that I got them. I developed a bond with him that remains to this day.
Interestingly, our house has a severe Vastu dosha. An astrologer came and called it a 'center of sorrow'. We have made some changes as per what we could. We could have broken the house down and remade it per Vastu, but that is not possible. Because even more interestingly, the house is now a litigated property, as my grandfather's brothers—all residents of foreign countries and married to foreigners—sold off their shares illegally to a promoter without telling my grandfather; so we have, for the past 20 odd years, been fighting a case against the promoter and the illegal sale of our house. The people of my family are all highly educated (IIT/Medical College passouts) and good people—but they suffer from depression, anxiety disorders, and paranoia. Physically, too, it takes a toll on their health. My parents both had TIA within months of each other and are now recovering. My grandfather died in his early 90s after trying to offer a piece of paper where he had written his dreams and hopes for the house to Bonkubihari—his dhuti caught fire and he got severe burns, and di not survive. My grandmother developed pneumonia and sepsis 4 years later, and passed away in a hospital owned by her sister's daughter, under special care of her sister's daughter and grandchildren, two months after Janmashtami.
I myself have suffered a variety of mental and physical ailments, but by God's grace, I am now medication-free and much healthier and better than I have ever been. There was a time when my family (my parents) ostracised me for nothing other than me trying to break these unhealthy, dysfunctional patterns at home—they put me on medication and considered me to be the problem, because they could not stand their own wrongdoings being told to them by me. Due to loneliness and unhappiness, I spent ten whole years making the wrong friendships and relationships, abusing substances, and even losing my usual faith in Bonkubihari for several years, whom I, since childhood, had spoken to and hugged and kissed and seen as a brother I never had. I got my diksha in a Krishna mantra in 2024. After a 3-year-long relationship that ended in mid-2025 with a very emotionally abusive man (a divorcee, who I later got to know was a very vile, godless, perverted man and had cheated on me and lied to me about many things), I quit everything. Today, I am clean, I don't need therapy, I don't need medication. It is shocking even to me, because I lived 10 years of my life thinking I was useless and defective and that no one would care if I was gone. Now, I feel that God has some purpose for me. And I have some duty I must perform for Bonkubihari and my family, and the common people of this world who are suffering at large.
Also, my whole family (except my little sister) is dikkhito. My grandparents and uncle are to Kali mantras, my mother and father to Shiva and Durga mantras, and I to a Krishna mantra.
I feel as though my life has been shaped by both suffering and grace in ways I still cannot fully understand. Despite losing my way for many years, I somehow found my way back to Bonkubihari, and back to myself. I am trying to understand what all of this means spiritually. Is there a deeper lesson, responsibility, or path hidden within these experiences? My question is this. What is the meaning of all this? What is my role and purpose? I have, for the longest time, been seeking answers. Where do you think I should look? Who do you think I should ask? I do not want my life, given to me by God for His purpose, to go to waste. Any help or insight will be deeply appreciated.